How to Use Amazon Attribution to Measure the Impact of Your Marketing Campaigns

Managing your listings is only part of what Amazon Seller Central can do for sellers. With many tools and services available, it is the start, but definitely not the end, of the selling journey. 

Knowing which tool to use for what can be overwhelming, but in this article, we’re going to focus on just one: Amazon Attribution. 

For sellers who have made the almost-essential leap into off-Amazon advertising to boost business, Amazon Attribution is a key factor to help track and understand marketing campaign performance. 

Let’s dive into what Amazon Attribution can show sellers, how to understand it, and how to make the results even better.

General Marketing Metrics 

Before we look at Amazon Attribution specifically, let’s take a look at marketing performance in general and some key marketing metrics sellers should care about:  

• Impressions: number of times the product listing is displayed to shoppers.
• Click-through rate (CTR): percentage of shoppers who see the product listing and click on it.
• Conversion rate (CVR): percentage of shoppers who click on the product listing and make a purchase.
• Advertising cost of sales (ACOS): amount of money spent on advertising divided by the amount of sales generated from advertising.
• Total Advertising cost of sales (TACOS): amount of money spent on advertising divided by the amount of total sales generated from all avenues.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): amount of money made in sales from advertising divided by the amount of money spent on advertising.

In addition to these core metrics, there are a number of other metrics that Amazon sellers may want to track, depending on their specific business goals. These include:

• New-to-brand metrics: These metrics track how many new customers are discovering the brand through marketing campaigns.
• Average order value (AOV): average amount of money that customers spend on each order.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): total amount of money that a customer is expected to spend on products over the course of their relationship with the brand.
• Return rate: percentage of customers who return products.

By tracking these metrics, Amazon sellers can gain insights into how their marketing campaigns are performing and identify areas where they can improve. This information can then be used to optimize marketing campaigns and drive more sales.

To understand more about why off-Amazon ads and external traffic are so important, check out this workshop replay:

What is Amazon Attribution?

According to Amazon: “Amazon Attribution is an advertising and analytics measurement solution that gives marketers insight into how their non-Amazon marketing channels perform on Amazon.”

Sounds simple, but what does that mean, and how does that work? 

If we expand on it in more technical terms, Amazon Attribution can track customer behavior on Amazon and attribute sales to the specific marketing channels that drove them by using parameterized URLs. It can track the customer journey from their initial exposure to the marketing campaign, to their final purchase on Amazon.

Through doing this, Amazon offers the sellers the chance to gain insight into the impact of their off-Amazon campaigns with metrics such as clicks, detail page views, Add to Carts, purchases, and brand halo metrics.

The only way to harness the power of these metrics is by running off-Amazon advertising campaigns. Our tool, PixelMe, is world-class, off-Amazon advertising technology, designed to automatically connect to Amazon Attribution to boost sales and revenue.

Want to see what off-Amazon advertising can do for your business? Get started with a PixelMe FREE ASIN opportunity audit to see how you can boost your rank here. 

What are parameterized URLs? 

They sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple: parameterized URLs are essentially tracking links. When a customer clicks on a parameterized URL, Amazon can track their activity on Amazon, even if they don't make a purchase immediately. This allows sellers to see how their marketing campaigns are influencing customer behavior on Amazon, and to attribute sales to the specific marketing channels that drove them.

When a customer clicks on a parameterized URL, Amazon will place a cookie on their device. This cookie will allow Amazon to track the customer's activity on Amazon for up to 30 days. If the customer makes a purchase during this time period, Amazon will attribute the sale to the marketing channel that drove the customer to Amazon.

To use Amazon Attribution, sellers first need to create an account and add the products they want to track. Once this has been set up, they can generate parameterized URLs for each of their marketing campaigns. These parameterized URLs can then be added to their website, social media posts, email marketing campaigns, and other marketing materials.

Learn more about the evolving world of marketing metrics with our blog Beyond Metrics: Navigating the Evolution of Amazon Marketing Cloud

Who can use Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution eligibility is currently available for professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, KDP authors, and agencies with clients who sell products on Amazon. 

If eligible, sellers or vendors can access Amazon Attributions through the self-service console or tools that have the Amazon Ads API. Carbon6 has several tools that make use of the API:

• PixelMe is the industry-leading, off-Amazon advertising software that is recognized by both Google and Amazon as a trusted third-party tool.
• D8aDriven uses the data about the business to put together easily-digestible executive summaries, as well as providing actionable insights and to-do lists
• ManageByStats is an integrated, data-powered software suite designed to help businesses manage and scale.

What can sellers do with Amazon Attribution?

Once sellers have access to their data from Amazon Attribution, knowing what to do with it is the next step.

Firstly, sellers should use the insights to measure the impact of all their marketing channels. Amazon Attribution can track the impact of both on- and off-Amazon marketing channels, giving a complete view of how marketing campaigns are performing and influencing customer behavior.

After taking this holistic look at the data, sellers can segment it by customer type, product category, and other factors. This allows a look at how different groups of customers are interacting with the brand and how the marketing campaigns are performing for each segment.

Finally, understanding the data will allow sellers to set clear goals and objectives for their marketing metrics. When they know what they want to achieve with Amazon Attribution, increase brand awareness, drive sales, or measure the impact of your marketing campaigns,  Amazon Attribution can track the metrics that matter most.

Want to know how to make the most of Google, Meta, and TikTok ads for peak sales periods? Catch this webinar replay in collaboration with Vendo:

How to make the most of Amazon Attribution

Optimize performance

Amazon Attribution offers downloadable reports, allowing sellers to track progress over time as well as the opportunity to compare results to benchmarks and other Amazon sellers.

Tracking the performance of a particular campaign or product with regular reporting can give insights into what is working and what isn’t. Sellers should make changes in areas where performance falls below the benchmarks and continue or increase efforts in areas that are performing well. 

Identify best channels

Amazon Attribution can help sellers identify the most effective marketing channels by showing the data on which marketing channels are driving the most sales. This information can help sellers to allocate the marketing budget, both time and spend, more effectively.

Understand the customer

Amazon Attribution can help sellers identify which customer segments are the most valuable to the business. This information can help inform marketing campaigns to be tailored and targeted to those specific customer segments.